THOMAS TASCHINGER: Presidency needed push from Putin

By Thomas Taschinger

Published 4:40 am, Sunday, September 15, 2013

President Obama never thought he'd be thanking Vladimir Putin for anything.

Mad Vlad is a surly throwback who doesn't like to pretend that Russia is a democracy. He routinely tosses dissidents into prison or loots the assets of entrepreneurs who irritate him. Putin is one of the few Russians who openly pines for the good ol' days of the KGB (his former employer) and the Soviet Union.

But it is this unlikely person who saved the bacon for Obama, and maybe the modern presidency. If Putin hadn't intervened at the last minute with a bizarre offer to take over Syria's chemical weapons, several bad things would have happened:

A) Obama would have lost a vote in Congress to OK the use of force against Syria.

B) The power of the presidency would have been weakened as a result, both in this country and around the world.

C) The anti-government rebels in Syria we are trying to help would have been discouraged even more.

Fortunately for Obama, and even his Republican opponents, those bullets were dodged. Everyone gets to back off and see if the chemical compromise actually works out.

That's still iffy, but the gambit has produced some positive results anyway.

Putin and Assad suddenly got religion on this issue because they knew the U.S. military was about to strike. In that sense, the Pentagon remains a powerful force for deterrence in a world filled with tyrants and terrorists.

Assad also won't poison his own people any more, even if doesn't give up all of his chemical weapons. To do so would expose the hollow lie that he didn't use the stuff in the first place.

Heck, it was a big step for Assad to admit that he had these WMDs to begin with. Prior to this crisis, the official government line was that Syria didn't have any chemical bombs - but still didn't want to sign international treaties banning them.

What's amazing is that Assad can brazenly flip on a crucial issue like that and still think anyone will take him seriously. For that matter, it was Russia itself that supplied Syria with many of its chemical components or missile delivery systems anyway. What a farce.

The long process of finding and securing Syria's chemical stockpile will drag on for months - if it ever gets started. More likely, Assad will let it kick off to get some good publicity but then claim it's too dangerous for the inspectors to keep looking.

Then he can resume his plan of grinding down the rebels no matter how much of his own country he has to destroy in the process. The only way to change that outcome is more covert aid to the rebels from the United States and like-minded nations.

If that doesn't work, Obama will have to consider openly training large numbers of Syrian rebel forces in a third country like Jordan. That would be a big step that the president doesn't want to take, but he may be forced into it.

The whole mess proves again that foreign affairs are even tougher for U.S. presidents to handle than domestic problems. In this country, at least, the weapons of choice are ballots, not bullets. There are no rules overseas, particularly when it comes to war and terrorism.

You have to play hard ball to win. Obama did that when he ordered Seal Team Six to take out Osama bin Laden. He didn't with Syria and was headed for disaster until Putin stepped in. It was a huge break, but let's hope that neither this president nor any future one is that vulnerable again.

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Thomas Taschinger, TTaschinger@BeaumontEnterprise.com, is the editorial page editor of The Beaumont Enterprise. Follow him on Twitter at @PoliticalTom